As the bank branch becomes a primary delivery channel for financial institutions, there is a constant need to improve operational efficiency and provide users with an improved quality of service. Most financial institutions have in the past had a defined system in place determining how currency notes were physically handled in a branch. Typically, there has been a secure vault where bulk currency notes are stored and these are distributed after multiple counts to tellers who can then perform necessary cash transactions with customers. Likewise, when cash has been received from customers, this has been counted many times and eventually returned as incoming cash to a vault. It has thus not been uncommon for currency notes to be counted by hand many times on a journey through a branch. Such cash handling procedures have decreased employee efficiencies and increased customer wait times. There has thus been a need to reduce exposed currency notes in a branch.
As technology has improved, attempts have been made to automate certain aspects of the currency note handling process. Such technology allows for remote note imaging or check imaging, signature capture and other such verification steps. The development of such technology has led to the introduction of media depositories used in automated teller machines (ATMs) and other such self-service terminals. Media depositories are used to receive media items from a customer. One common type of media depository is a sheet media depository for receiving items of media in sheet form. For example, such items of media can be currency notes, checks, tickets, gyros or the like. Some sheet depositories are capable of receiving a bunch of sheet items of media in a loading area and then picking individual sheets from a bunch so that each sheet can then be identified and validated individually prior to storage of a validated sheet within a depository or returned to a customer.
Another type of automated unit is the currency recycler. In such devices, customers may deposit items of media such as currency notes, checks, vouchers or the like, and these are processed separately one-by-one and stored in various storage modules within a terminal. For example, a storage unit can be an escrow storage unit in which, instead of being deposited directly into a storage module, once counted and verified, currency notes or checks input by a user are held temporarily until a teller negotiating with a user completes a transaction. If a customer decides to cancel a transaction or asks for the items to be recounted, the original deposited bank currency notes can be returned. This function allows any disputes to be resolved promptly. The temporarily stored items are held in a roll storage module (RSM) in the escrow module.
Cash recyclers and other such units also include one or more roll storage modules (RSMs). Such RSMs are provided for each of the possible currency notes or checks or other such vouchers which may be presented at a recycler unit. For example, an RSM dedicated to a £10 note will be provided as well as an RSM dedicated to a £20 note as well as an RSM dedicated to a £50 note or the like.
When a customer presents a bunch of items, these do not need to be manually counted by a teller, but are instead fed into an input slot on the recycler unit. Each presented item is counted and verified within a recycler and once it has been decided to make a permanent deposit of the presented items, the items are separated and stored in a respective RSM. For example, all £20 notes presented in a bunch are stored in the £20 RSM etc.
A cash recycler thus helps automate acceptance, authentication and validation of currency notes. Another advantage of such units is that the deposited items which are stored in respective RSMs can subsequently be dispensed when another user attends at a teller and requests currency notes. A cash recycler thus enables previously deposited currency notes to be instantly available for dispensing to customers.
Cash recyclers also help reduce transaction times and time taken for start and end-of-day cash balancing. Average wait times for customers can thus be reduced and overall branch security is improved.
In an RSM, items of media are wrapped around a cylindrical drum. The drum thus presents a curved outer surface and the items are bent around the outer surface and located and kept in place by one or more tape windings.
It is understood that there are other self-service terminals and other item storage devices where sheet items of media are stored on a semi-permanent basis for subsequent dispensation of the stored items to a user requesting them. On many occasions the rolled storage units utilized can store items for many hundreds, if not thousands, of hours. Often the storage occurs in such a way that the items are quite tightly wrapped, and thus curved. Being stored in such a state and for such a long period of time can make it extremely difficult on occasion to remove the items from a storage reel.
This problem is particularly pronounced when the storage drum used is used to store a large number of items. In such instances, the effective outer diameter of a storage drum and windings can be radically enlarged relative to the diameter of the drum in an empty state. Known techniques for scraping items of media from a rotating drum so as to assist the removal of the items are not able to cope with such large quantities as the expanding diameter interferes with the operation of the scraper. In particular, when storing many hundreds of notes, a drum diameter and thus a tangential angle of items leaving the effective outer surface of the drum becomes too great and the scraper is effectively pushed out of a desired location.
This has two detrimental effects. Firstly, a blade edge is no longer duly located to scrape items to release them from the drum. Also, items which are removed cannot access and move along a desired pathway to an exit orifice. The pathway is blocked by the expanded drum/windings.